On DFSX Radio, comedy music DJ, artist, and station owner David Tanny had a show called "I Still Get Demented", a showcase much like the Dr. Demento show, complete with a small Top 3 countdown at the end. However, when Tanny chose to cancel "ISGD" in August 2004, he felt the countdown should continue...
The DFSXRadio Top 9 - 2004
Tanny spun the countdown off into its own show on August 14, 2004, calling it "The DFSXRadio Top 9", counting down the top 9 songs as voted on by the visitors to the station's website.
However, voting was a little different in those days. Tanny kept a strict focus on the new and popular by using recurrent rules, and songs that had been on the ballot for long enough required more votes to be able to stay on the ballot and therefore on the broadcast chart, even if the number of votes placed it into the raw chart. Tanny also allowed voters to multiply their votes by purchasing his albums, with one extra ballot allowed per album purchased. There was also a 20-song-per-week vote cap, and ballots could not be amended. This voting system stayed in place for the entirity of Tanny's affiliation with the show.
Tanny also instituted a inverse-point system to calculate how songs stack up against each other for the half-year and full-year charts, much the same way Dr. Demento does (and as chart granddaddy "American Top 40" used to do in its early days).
The Dementia Top 20 - 2005-2007
On January 6, 2005, Tanny expanded the chart to 20 positions, and also added more features to the show, including "New Strokes" and "The Demented Resurrection Zone", featuring the newest songs and special requests, respectively. These features came after the main chart, and the entire programming block was called "The DT20 Zone". The show stayed in this format until paranoia forced DFSX off the air, seemingly for good.
Mad Music Dementia Top 20 - 2007
With Live365 worried about the possibility of rising royalty costs, they had forecasted a rate increase, and many stations affiliated with them simply ceased to exist. DFSX Radio was one of these on July 11, 2007, but Tanny decided to keep his countdown going on The Mad Music Archive, adding "Mad Music" to the name of the show. The "New Strokes" and "Demented Resurrection Zone" features were integrated into the DT20 show itself, and many of the songs in the first half of the countdown were played only as excerpts.
In December 2007, Tanny announced he was cancelling the DT20 in favor of a new show, the "Mad Music Comedy Zone", which would be a general comedy music showcase highlighted by the two most requested songs of the week duking it out in "Dementiamania". This, coupled with the announcement that Dr. Demento was to no longer have a weekly Funny Five, meant a void was created...
Mad Music Dementia Top 20 - 2008-present
When comedy music DJ and artist DJ Particle got wind of the news of DT20's cancellation, she innocently asked on Usenet if there was anyone else who could take the show over. Tanny's response was to basically volunteer DJ Particle herself for the position, which she accepted. After a hiatus of one week to set up a voting system on the Mad Music Archive site, the Mad Music Dementia Top 20 returned to the Mad Music Archive on January 12, 2008.
DJ Particle changed the format of the show a bit. Since Tanny moved "New Strokes" and "Demented Resurrection Zone" to his new show, DJ Particle set up a new feature called "Bleeding Edge Dementia", which basically served the same purpose as "New Strokes", but only playing one song per feature. Also, all 20 songs would air in their entirity, with DJ Particle herself announcing every song before and after play, making the format of the show similar to that of classic "American Top 40".
There is no longer a recurrent rule, as every song can stay on the chart for as long as it's popular, and any song listed in the Mad Music Archive is eligible for the ballot (though the main voting page concentrates on the newest and most voted songs, any song can be searched and voted for), and everyone gets one ballot per week to vote for as many songs as they like, and if you change your mind or want to vote for newly-added songs, the ballot can be amended.
There is also no more inverse-point system. Year-end totals are calculated now simply by how many votes the songs get, making this version of the DT20 the most accurate version yet, and the more people that participate in the voting process, the more accurate the chart gets!
Here's to the last 5 years, and to many more!